“Self-defense or defense of my loved ones doesn’t motivate me. When I think about the number of people I personally know, and then about the number of them who have ever had an occasion to draw a weapon and shoot someone in self-defense, I think that this is rare,” Barber explained. “Do rare things still happen? Yes. But I try to take precautions against risks in a way prioritized to take into account the likelihood that those risks are going to take place.”
“For example, I probably ought to cut down on the milkshakes before preparing myself for armed confrontation. My risk of disease, just from my experience with family, friends, and others, is far more prominent,” Barber said, posting an accompanying GIF of Wilford Brimley in an old Liberty Medical commercial about Diabetes treatment.
Barber later jokingly clarified in the comments below that he isn’t planning on giving up milkshakes entirely.
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“Preparation to play some role in a civil war against an oppressive government doesn’t motivate me. I’ve seen first hand what life looks like in the midst of a conflict like this. We are nowhere near the circumstances that would justify it, in my estimation,” Barber said.
Barber then went on to describe a personal tragedy that gives him pause when it comes to carrying a firearm.
“I am de-motivated by my experience in a traffic accident years ago. Although it was illegal to do so, a fourteen-year-old boy decided to try to run across I-30 in Dallas right in front of our Suburban. I hit him. He died right there as I held his hand on the middle lane,” Barber said. “So, I know what it is to be involved in taking a life. Even in a situation in which I was completely innocent and it was entirely inadvertent, that was a deep and lasting burden of grief. Not an idea to entertain flippantly, folks.”
Recounting the incident, Barber said that it didn’t occur to him to perform CPR on the boy until he thought about it the next day, even though he was CPR trained. Barber expressed that while CPR would not have helped the child, knowing how to respond well in a life-or-death situation requires constant training.
“And so, I’ve come to doubt the likelihood that, in that rare situation in which I would need to draw and use a firearm for self-defense, I would actually remember to do it. Police officers TRAIN to use their weapons. CONSTANTLY. Apart from having that training, I’m skeptical,” Barber said. “So, I’m not going to bother with getting a license, and then lugging around some uncomfortable firearm 24/7 for the reasons I’ve given above. I support your right to do it; I’m not going to do it.”
With regard to why he owns an AR-15, Barber said, “Actually, let me put it in these terms. I’m almost never carrying a weapon, but here are four occasions just in the past two weeks in which I have WISHED that I had been carrying a gun with me.”
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Barber went on to detail the incidents. One was when he came across a mortally wounded deer, but was unable to put the animal out of its misery. Another was when he spotted a wild coyote on his farm, a very real threat to calves, but was unable to dispatch with it. Another time, Barber encountered a cottonmouth snake, another danger to his family and farm.
